Flutterfire: 🐛 [FIREBASE_MESSAGING] iOS: message callbacks do not fire when push notification is sent via APNS token

[aytunch]

Bug report

Describe the bug
On iOS devices,
I upgraded to Firebase Messaging v8.0.0-dev.9
With it, I was able to use getAPNSToken() and successfully send this 64bit hexadecimal to a third party chat service.
When I send a push notification from the third party chat service console and app is on the background, iOS shows the notification banner.
My code looks like this:

      Future<void> func(message) async => print("got message in background");
      .....
      .....
      FirebaseMessaging.onMessage.listen((message) {
          print("message received");
      });
      FirebaseMessaging.onBackgroundMessage(func);
      FirebaseMessaging.onMessageOpenedApp.listen((message) {
          print("opened message");
      });

The onMessageOpenedApp and onBackgroundMessage functions do not get triggered when a notification is sent through the third party chat service while the app is in the background.
However onMessageOpenedApp triggers when I send a message from Firebase Cloud Messaging. Note that onBackgroundMessage does not fire even with Firebase Cloud Messaging.

Also the onMessage function does not get triggered when a notification is sent through the third party chat service while the app is in the foreground.

Steps to reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. use getAPNSToken() to get the native token for iOS.
2. send this APNS token to the third party chat service.
3. send a notification from the third party chat service
4. take the app to the background
5. observe that the notification banner is received successfully while onBackgroundMessage is not being triggered.
6. take the app to the foreground
7. send a notification from the third party chat service
8. onMessage is not triggered and the notification is totally omitted by Firebase Messaging

Expected behavior

We should receive the notifications send to our app thorugh onMessage and onBackgroundMessage no matter if they are sent using APNS or FCM token.

---

Additional context

Add any other context about the problem here.

---

Flutter doctor

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[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 1.22.4, on macOS 11.0.1 20B29 darwin-x64, locale en-TR)
    • Flutter version 1.22.4 at /Users/berat/Documents/Development/flutter
    • Framework revision 1aafb3a8b9 (3 weeks ago), 2020-11-13 09:59:28 -0800
    • Engine revision 2c956a31c0
    • Dart version 2.10.4

[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 30.0.2)
    • Android SDK at /Users/berat/Library/Android/sdk
    • Platform android-30, build-tools 30.0.2
    • Java binary at: /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jre/jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_242-release-1644-b3-6222593)
    • All Android licenses accepted.

[✓] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS (Xcode 12.2)
    • Xcode at /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
    • Xcode 12.2, Build version 12B45b
    • CocoaPods version 1.10.0

[!] Android Studio (version 4.1)
    • Android Studio at /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents
    ✗ Flutter plugin not installed; this adds Flutter specific functionality.
    ✗ Dart plugin not installed; this adds Dart specific functionality.
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_242-release-1644-b3-6222593)

[✓] VS Code (version 1.51.1)
    • VS Code at /Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents
    • Flutter extension version 3.16.0

[✓] Connected device (1 available)
    • Ibrahim Berat’s iPhone (mobile) • 4908a07faafc82e9575c22f23c588d81e74ed3c9 • ios • iOS 14.2

! Doctor found issues in 1 category.

---

Flutter dependencies

Run flutter pub deps -- --style=compact and paste the output below:

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Dart SDK 2.10.4
Flutter SDK 1.22.4
bare_bones 1.0.0+1

dependencies:
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dependency overrides:
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transitive dependencies:
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---

[markusaksli-nc]

Hi @aytunch
On iOS you would need to add "content_available": true, to the message payload to temporarily wake the app and trigger a background message callback.
Are you including this in your payload?
Thank you

[aytunch]

@markusaksli-nc from the console of the chat service I check the content_available flag but nothing changes.

[markusaksli-nc]

Does the background callback work if you send a notification through FCM?

Such as

{
  "notification":{
    "title": "This is the title",
    "body": "This is the body",
  },
  "content_available": true,
  "priority": "high",
  "data": {
    "id": 15,
    "type": "comment"
  },
  "to": "FCM token"
}

[aytunch]

@markusaksli-nc Hi again:)

I made several tests and below are the summary of the situation:

When the client iOS app is on background, no matter what the content-available is set to, we only see the notification banner. onBackgroundMessage is never triggered. This is same with both FCM and 3rd party chat service(using APNS token)

When the client iOS app is on foreground;
Push notification through FCM console triggers onMessage
But 3rd party chat service APNS console does not trigger onMessage

[markusaksli-nc]

My suspicion is that in this case contentAvailable is not being set correctly. In this case, it will seem like it is doing nothing.

The payload you sent seems to be meant for Firebase Admin SDK for Node.js. The FCM HTTP ref describes the property content_available as:

content_available | Optional, boolean | On iOS, use this field to represent content-available in the APNs payload.

The payload that I commented is what works for me when sending background messages.

curl https://fcm.googleapis.com/fcm/send -H "Content-Type:application/json" -X POST -d @send.json -H "Authorization: key=<Cloud Messaging key>"

With this it should at least work through FCM, however, I'm not sure how the third-party notification payload is handled so I can't offer any advice there.

[iberatkaya]

I also have a similar issue. I apologize if this is already mentioned if the documentation and maybe I have missed it, but do onMessage and onBackgroundMessage not get triggered when a message is sent with APNS, and does onBackgroundMessage not work with iOS? I have no issues on Android but on iOS onMessage does not get triggered when an APNS message is sent via the Admin SDK, and onBackgroundMessage does not get triggered at all with both APNS or FCM.

[ifanger]

I'm facing the same issue on iOS.
Android is working fine with both onMessage and onBackgroundMessage.
iOS isn't triggering onMessage or onBackgroundMessage when the app is terminated.

(when the app is in background or foreground it's working fine)